Generals: We Now Have Camouflage Upgrade
by Reading Disorder
Summary: Stealth units, gets 'em every time. One-shot.


"Kill them all!"

"Sshh!" Haziq said in a hushed whisper to his rebel mates, "Do you really want them to hear us?" The 'them' he was referring to was a patrolling group of Rangers headed towards their general direction. Nothing they couldn't handle, if the Rangers were blindfolded and armed with olive branches. This particular group had an arsenal of automatic M16 rifles and flash-bangs, which were much better melee weapons than any stick. Haziq was beginning to question the reasoning behind placing sixteen rebels smack-centre in the devil's favourite deathtrap known as General Towne's base, filled with over-sized bug zappers and menacing posters of Uncle Sam, but he guessed that if he could teleport invisible infantry across the world every few minutes, he would use it for the purpose of entertainment too.

"I really don't want to end up dead again. It was hard enough coming back the first time," he whispered.

"Relax, brother!" one of the rebels raised his voice to a level one would expect in a noisy supermarket, "As long as we do not fire our guns, they will never know we are here! You see, we now have camouflage upgrade!"

"We're wearing green in the middle of a concrete grey platform."

"We are pretending to be a forest." In one swift motion, the squad of twelve rebels stood ramrod straight with practiced synchronization, some of them stretching their hands like the appendages of a tree. Haziq felt the urge to groan but his speech ability was robbed by the approaching Rangers. The most his body allowed him to do was topple to the ground like a dead body. Maybe they would be amused by their acting skills and spare them for the sake of entertainment. Or maybe they would just take the opportunity to kill these defenseless rebels in the most humiliating and painful way possible. His heart skipped a beat, imploded and crawled its way out of his mouth. They walked up to the forest. One of them removed a flag from his backpack, raised it like a weapon . . .

. . . And plunged it into the ground just inches away from the nearest GLA grunt. "Forest, meet your new owner," he said with a lopsided smile, eyes sparkling with greed all Americans have. Haziq heaved a sigh of relief.

When he got back up, he was treated by a cacophony of motorized power so loud that every window, glass cup, computer screen, brick wall, composite armour and opera singer in the base instantaneously shattered asunder. Roaring up the ramps with the raucous din of a super pimped-out diesel engine was an allied Combat Cycle, trying to infiltrate the base with the stealth and subtlety of an oncoming thunderstorm. Haziq could only watch with horror-filled eyes, waiting expectantly for the laser turrets to turn that blinding flash of white light into an even more blinding flash of white light. Instead of erupting into a second Sun however, the speedster glided righteously through the base on flaming wheels, leaving a blazing trail of melted concrete in its wake. It ground to a halt with an ear-imploding screech in front of him, wheezing out columns of smoke like an exploding fireworks factory. The nearby Ranger didn't even bat an eyelid. "Whew! Alright who just jerked?"

"I send word from our leader, the Randomly-Generated General Name," the messenger cried out above the verbal protests of his demonic steed on the lack of a forward momentum, "Why is it taking so long? Pick up the speed!"

Haziq looked up wanly, and forced his mouth to form words, "How come the laser defenses didn't turn you into a steaming pile of ashes?" The rebel looked down, wishing really badly right now that he had chosen to wear a leather jacket. "They cannot see me, because I now have camouflage upgrade."

"You have got to be joking," Haziq's tone was filled with disbelief, "Seriously, a stealth motorcycle? That's seriously pushing it!"

"Do not judge me, brother," he challenged, "I am only delivering a message. Now let's get out of here!" The Combat cycle revved in acknowledgement and did a complete turn in a single wheelie, attempting to reenact a scene of the Roadrunner on steroids. Haziq watched him knock a ranger clear off his feet before disappearing off into the sunset. "Wow, sure is windy today," the man said nonchalantly, before running back to rejoin his patrol squad.

"Did you hear that, brother?" a rebel told him, "The General is displeased!"

"Heads roll when he is displeased!" said another rebel, "He will surely punish us!"

"He will cluster us together and summon a bomber to drop anthrax on us!"

"He will order us to stand on top of a demo trap and then detonate it!"

"He will tie us up to a chair and force us to watch all three seasons of Lost!"

"NOOOOO!"

"Impossible!"

"No man is that cruel!"

"All of you shut it," Haziq shouted, immediately warranting a deathly silence that was a rarity for the team, "He won't punish us if we get the job done, right?"

"Yes! Your words are true, brother, just like the cause we are fighting for!" the rebel leader waved his gun wildly in the air and let loose a barrage of bullets into an unsuspecting pigeon flock. "Let us capture their barracks and finish this quest!"

'_Stealth ability neutralized,' _a helpful voice piped in from the heavens. Haziq glanced skyward.

"Tell me you guys heard that."

"Heard what, brother? I hear only the beating hearts of our loyal men."

"No," Haziq pointed at the sky, gesturing them to follow his gaze, "A voice. Like the ones you hear in elevators." The rebels gave them a quizzical look, but their curiosity had been piqued. The rebel leader, the one who claimed to have an arbitrary level of experience higher than the rest of them, and thus could fire bullets that were red with his fury, was the first to look up. He was also the first to have his eyes vaporized by an exploding grenade. Haziq watched his hair explode into flames, and then eventually burn its way through the skin to reveal his skull in all its gruesome splendor. Screaming profanities in his mother tongue, the man with the burning head stumbled blindly away from the group, firing his weapon in all directions as a futile attempt to counterattack, before his drunken roaming brought him into an oddly-placed laser turret whose sole purpose was to add upon his misery.

Fifteen glorious beams of ruby death lit his body alight with a ridiculously cool 'pew' sound, punching fist-sized holes into his body until he looked like delicious Swiss cheese, with rancid-smelling liquid mold coming out of its thirty-two clean-cut crevices. Haziq blinked once, and didn't get to see the well-done mincemeat ascend into nirvana, heaven, utopia, Kazakhstan and Xanatos before returning back to the mortal realm in the form of a headless meteor.

The meteor then explodes.

"Our brethren can be seen by the enemy."

"Oh sh –"

DEFEAT

YOUR WEAKNESSES BECAME OBVIOUS ONCE I SCANNED YOUR TACTICS

RESTART


End file.
